Somebody Led Me Away
by coloursflyaway
Summary: For this sweet little prompt I got on Tumblr: Steve kisses bucky not knowing that it returns his memories everytime he does.


Steve kisses him the first time when they are standing on a bridge, Bucky bleeding from where he has tries to somehow rip that damned, disgusting, violent arm from his body. His hands are still shaking, but Steve's hands are warm, confident, and he lets the other touch him, even if he involuntary thinks about ripping off his fingers, one by one.  
"Come home with me, Buck", Steve says, and his voice sounds like his touch feels, Bucky closes his eyes and lets it wash over him. Turns and wants to say no, wants to say that he does not have a home, doesn't even have a name, but Steve doesn't let him. Kisses him right there, in the open, where everyone could see, where everyone could shoot them, kill them, and Bucky lets him.  
Kisses back, even, lips sliding against lips, and wonders if kissing is supposed to make him think of blonde hair and a frail body and the overwhelming need to protect.

Steve kisses him again when they get back to the flat Bucky does not call home, just a soft press of lips against his forehead, and leaves the room, saying he'll get something to clean up. Tells Bucky to stop worrying.  
It leaves the taste of sugar on his tongue and the sound of shared laughter in his ears, and Bucky realises that he is _remembering_, something he never thought he would.

Three days, it takes until Bucky has worked up the courage to kiss Steve, two days of trying to find another way of making himself remember, and then one to accept that there wasn't one. It's fortunate that Steve has insisted on taking him in, because Bucky is sure he would not be able to force himself to come here, knock on the other's door and ask for a kiss, a touch which is so intimate it still feels as wrong to him as it feels nice; like this, though, he can just walk up to Steve, who is making coffee in his, their, _the_ kitchen, and spin him around. Kiss him like Steve kissed him on that bridge, only clumsier, less used to being gentle and more to being rough, still afraid that he will hurt someone with a motion he hasn't thought through enough.

No memories come, not at first, and Bucky wants to pull back, disappointed, but then Steve smles against his lips, curls one hand around Bucky's arm, and returns the kiss gently. And when the other moves, licks at his lips with a clever tongue, there is a memory rising in the back of Bucky's mind, of a night more than seventy years ago.  
Steve is in it, Steve and a clear, starry sky, the taste of stale beer and cheap cigarettes, and a girl who kissed Bucky and Steve who Bucky wanted to kiss. Steve who he did kiss that night, for the very first time in both their lives, who reacted with a surprised sound and then, a soft sigh, breathing out his name when Bucky pulled back. A smile on his lips, and one on Steve's too.

It doesn't happen for far too long after that, although Bucky knows that Steve is watching, but there are missions to take care of, people to stop and kill and there is no time for kissing, no time for looking at the other's face and trying to find a sign that he wants to be kissed. Because Bucky is still so bad at this, at reading other's, at making sure he is doing the right thing.  
But then Bucky gets hurt, some insignificant bullet wound on his thigh, which doesn't hurt more than electric shocks or having his back whipped until his blood is staining the walls; Steve worries, though, even Bucky can see that.  
They get back to their ship, but that is it, before Steve is dropping to his knees in front of him, pulling the tattered fabric of his pants aside, trying and failing to suppress a curse.  
"You need to let someone look at that", the other says softly, like speaking to a wounded animal, a frightened child, and Bucky shakes his head.  
"No." It is nothing after all, and doctors and hospitals remind him of his arm, remind him of pain, remind him of ice. Remind him of a time before this.  
"Let me, at least?"  
He cannot say no to that, can't ever say no to Steve these days, and it's worth it when the other looks up at him with relief written across his face, a smile on his pink lips. "Thank you", Steve says, and it doesn't make sense, but Bucky nods nonetheless, accepts it. Steve has said once that that is an acceptable reaction.

And then Steve kisses him, reaches out and takes his hand, his good, living, hand; presses his lips against the palm and doesn't even care about the blood splattered on the skin. Bucky's fingers curl and brush over the other's throat, his chin, but he doesn't notice; there is another memory breaking free.  
It's Steve again, and Bucky starts to believe it will always be Steve, and is surprised that he doesn't mind. Steve, who is smaller and pale, wrapped up in too many blankets and his slender hands holding a steaming cup. He is smiling up at Bucky, his eyes bright although he's sick, and telling him to _stop worrying, Buck, really, it's just a cold._

Bucky doesn't know much more, but knows for a fact that he didn't stop worrying after that. Never did.

After that, the kisses start happening more and more often, pressed to his cheeks and his throat and his lips whenever Steve can, each time bringing back a little bit of the life Bucky has thought he'd lost forever. He likes it, might even love it, just like he might love Steve, but he doesn't tell the other, wouldn't know how to.  
Only kisses him back, and lets Steve look after his thigh when he asks him to.

It's a Wednesday night, and Bucky comes back to the flat – _back home_, he reminds himself, because the one time the word slipped past his lips, Steve had smiled so brightly it had almost blinded Bucky – and feels something is different before he has even toed off his shoes. Nothing bad, nothing dangerous, but something is different, because there is music playing softly in the living room, Steve singing along with it, there is the clanking of metal and a smell in the air Bucky can't place.  
He walks into the flat with soft steps, and finds Steve in the kitchen with his back to him, stirring in a pot and humming to himself.  
"Hi", the other greets without turning, but Bucky can hear the smile in his voice. "I thought I would do something nice for you. Us."

Bucky can feel something inside him swell and heat up, making him feel lighter than ever before, and without thinking, he walks into the room and presses his body flush against the other. Steve makes a sound, surprised but pleased, and leans back; Bucky is there to hold him up  
"Thank you", Bucky says softly, lets his chin drop on the other's shoulder.  
"You're welcome." Steve is smiling when he answer, he can feel the upturn of his lips when the other kisses his cheek. Bucky remembers the best Christmas he ever had, spent in a too cold, too small flat in the middle of Brooklyn, with Steve on his lap and the other's smile making up for the lack of fairy lights tenfold.

They eat and it tastes a little like home, but that might be the smile Steve sends him over the table, might be the way the other reaches out to hold his hand after they are finished. A hand he doesn't let go of again until they are in Steve's bedroom, and Steve is watching him while he unbuttons his own shirt, to make sure that this is okay.  
Steve kisses him a thousand times that night, kisses every inch of skin he can find, and when Bucky wakes the next morning, with a dull ache in his lower back and Steve's arms around him, the other's soft hair tickling his cheeks, he feels like he has regained a whole life.


End file.
